The Asian Games this year had it’s first ever eSports tournaments and India’s Tirth ‘gcttirth’ Mehta secured a bronze medal for the country. Tirth participated in the tournament for Hearthstone, an online collectible card game made by Blizzard Entertainment, the same folks behind the Diablo trilogy, WoW and Overwatch.

Tirth won the India Qualifiers which were held by Electronic Sports Federation of India (ESFI). He then went 2-0 after beating both Pakistan and Sri Lanka to win the South Asian Qualifiers and cement his place in the main event that was to be held in Jakarta.

The main event was a single elimination bracket event, meaning losing meant you were knocked out. Tirth took on Japan’s Akasaka ‘Tredsred’ Tetsuro in the first round and defeated him 3-2 and moved on to the Semi-Finals where he faced the eventual winner of the tournament, Lo ‘Kin0531’ Tsz-kin from Hong Kong to whom he lost 3-2. Hope was not lost though as the Bronze medal was still up for grabs and Tirth defeated Vietnam’s Nguyen Anh Tuan to secure the Bronze Medal.

Tirth later posted on Facebook thanking those who helped him succeed and said, “This was definitely a group effort, and the medal belongs not only to me but to the whole gaming community of India <3 Let’s work towards getting that gold in the 2022 Asian Games!”. This is quite a big step for the Indian eSports scene and also for Tirth himself. Congratulations to Tirth and we hope his victory inspires more players to fulfill their dreams and proves to those who doubt the validity of eSports that it’s not a waste of time.